


Kintsugi

by ygrainette



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, PTSD and recovery, Post - Deathly Hallows, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:24:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ygrainette/pseuds/ygrainette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, there's a lot of healing to be done before anyone can move on. Neville and Luna are no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kintsugi

**Author's Note:**

> This is primarily a Neville/Luna fic, but there's a lot of the other characters too. I intended it to be short. Things happened along the way. This may end up becoming a 'verse/series depending on plot bunnies/the whims of my writing muse.
> 
> Content warning for references to violence and character death. [All essentially canon-compliant in the Battle of Hogwarts/general events of Deathly Hallows.]
> 
> I love feedback immensely. I also [tumble](http://capricorn-child.tumblr.com).  
> This fic is un-beta'd. All errors etc are my own.
> 
> Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with golden lacquer.

It doesn't happen straight away.

Nothing much happens straight away, actually. Neville's not entirely sure just _what_ he expected would happen after You-Know-Who – no, _Voldemort_ , they're calling him by his name these days – was defeated, but it wasn't this. He'd had vague ideas of parties and great rejoicing and sunshine and everything being _right_ again, all at once, and of course Harry sweeping Ginny into his arms, and perhaps he and Luna making grand confessions of undying love –

But that's not what happens.

There's a few hours, after, that seem like a fever dream at the time and possibly just figments of his imagination when he looks back on it later – the explosion of noise and pent-up emotion in the Great Hall, the instant that snake-faced corpse hit the ground. Pandemonium. People crying, shouting, screaming, clinging on to one another, shaking Harry's hand, shaking _Neville's_ hand. Kids and their parents and house-elves and _teachers_ hugging him and kissing him and sobbing on his shoulder.

There's food passed around everywhere, every available container flowing with Butterbeer, and couples embracing, and portraits and ghosts and suits of armour bursting into song. And everywhere he turns, everyone, from Professor McGonagall down to little Hufflepuff third-years who sneaked back into the castle to fight, wanting to touch Gryffindor's sword. Wanting to touch the hand that had swung it, tell him with tears in their eyes he was a hero and a legend and Hogwarts never would have survived this year if not for him and the DA –

Then, finally, as the pale dawn breaks and then begins to age into undeniable golden _day_ , he finds his grandmother, archly expounding on her recent adventures evading the Death Eaters to an awestruck Professor Slughorn. When Nevile arrives, Slughorn starts shaking his hand yet again, begins, "Augusta, your grandson has been a veritable _inspiration_ this year –"

But his grandmother must see something in his face, the exhaustion of the last twelve hours and the last twelve months finally taking their toll. For she stands, links her hand into the crook of Neville's elbow, and merely says, "My grandson could be nothing less. And now you must excuse us."

She doesn't even give Slughorn a reason, because she's Augusta Alexandra Brighid Longbottom, and has never in her life thought to doubt, not even for a second, that what she says goes. That's the old pureblood pride, right there: _we may not be rich anymore, but by Merlin, we are Longbottoms and we'll hold our heads up high._

So they leave, Augusta leaning on Neville a little, just enough to let outsiders see a young man escorting his wearied grandmother home, and not the inverse. They slip out of the throng in the Great Hall, down to the Entrance Hall where the huge, ornate fireplace –that Neville has never once in seven years seen lit with an actual fire – is filled with crackling emerald flames.

As he steps into the Floo portal, he catches a glimpse of long, silvery hair, a dirt-streaked pale face, one he hasn't seen in – months, must have been. Months of worrying himself sick, clutching the old DA enchanted Galleon, wishing he could believe he'd know if anything happened to her. And oh, he wants to call out to her, to run to her, sweep her into his arms and not even to kiss her, just to hug her tight and marvel that they'd made it through. Then yes, perhaps, tell her, _I think I've loved you since the Department of Mysteries, and you are the most beautiful person I've ever known_ , do the throw-his-heart-at-her-feet thing a little.

But it is May 2nd, 1997, a day for the history books, and he's so tired, tired right down to the marrow of his bones. And so he holds onto his grandmother's hand, calls out, "Longbottom Lodge," and lets himself be spun around and up and away.

* * *

He sleeps for something like fourteen hours all told that day, deep and blessedly dreamless on his unmade childhood bed. Gets up with his sleeping pattern all shot to hell, alone in his grandmother's house after weeks of living out of a hammock, half on the run, cheek-by-jowl with about a dozen other kids. The sudden normality is stunning, terrifying. No Carrows running patrol and turning the Cruciatus on children. No cloak-and-dagger after-hours DA missions. No Snape stalking about, black eyes gleaming, a schoolboy's nightmare transformed into an all-too-real despot.

No more war.

Just a hell of a lot of clean-up to do.

* * *

First, there are the funerals.

Too many of them, far too many. Neville goes to all of them, and that's how those first weeks pass, in a haze of black mourning robes, and sobbing parents, weeping friends, day after day until the taste of victory turns to ash in his mouth.

He feels like he's sleepwalking through it all. He helps Bill and Arthur Weasley haul George back to his feet after he collapses to the ground before Fred's fresh-covered grave. Puts his arm around Parvati's trembling shoulders at Lavender's funeral. Squeezes Ginny's hand and pretends he doesn't notice Harry's tears at Tonks and Lupin's. Lets Hannah bury her face against his chest at Ernie's. Shakes the hand of the Creevey brothers' father, over and over, grips his shoulder and tells him his sons did heroes.

It all fades into one. A blur.

He doesn't even cry, not then, and it sickens him. Watching some of his friends depart in pine boxes, while the ones they leave behind come apart at the seams, not a tear in sight. It would scare the absolute life out of him, if it weren't for the fact all his feelings are somehow sealed off behind some wall of ice.

Inside, he's frosted over, like the Hogwarts lake in January, that thin glassy layer covering it over, while beneath it the giant squid still lurks, waving its tentacles in the quiet depths. It looks safe, calm and quiet as it is, but lay a foot on it and you'll fall through, crash into water cold enough to kill.

He held it together for a year: held himself together, held everyone else together. Talked Seamus and Ginny down when their fury had them teetering on the edge, broke it down and made it simple when Luna and Terry Boot got lost in over-thinking every aspect of every scheme and plot. He'd found the certainty to look terrified first-years in the eye and promise them they'd be looked after, that everything would be alright.

He'd accepted the blame, taken the punishments, let Filch flog him bloody and got up and got on with it. Smiled and cajoled and ordered and shouted and sympathised and laughed and cried them all through it, and somewhere along the line he'd become their _leader_. And he'd held it together, even through the battle, even through facing down Voldemort himself, even when he felt so sick with fear and anger he thought he'd _die_ of it –

And now he feels nothing at all.

Maybe there's something wrong in him, he thinks. Some essential part that got lost somewhere along the way. Maybe he killed it when he cursed that Death Eater, sent him crashing over the parapet of the Astronomy tower, four hundred feet to fall, and didn't even flinch.

He thinks his grandmother is worried about him. He can't be sure, because after years of treating him like a slow six-year-old, she's finally stopped fussing over him and started treating him like an adult. No more lectures about going to bed too late, the length of his hair, what he eats, is he doing his schoolwork, can't he wear some decent shoes for a change, when is he going to introduce her to Harry Potter, and don't mumble at me, boy. The Lodge is quieter these days, and when she looks at him she smiles, and her eyes are perfectly _there_ , perfectly in the here and now, not looking back twenty years to her famous hero son. Not anymore.

But sometimes her smile is sad, and tired, defeated almost, and Augusta Longbottom is _never_ defeated. She has their house-elf making his favourite blueberry crumble, adding Honeyduke's Murmuring Marshmallows to his evening cocoa, when she's always sniffed at them and said they'd rot his teeth. And sometimes, after supper, when he's sipping cocoa and she's sipping tea, she lays her hand on his, and sighs, and he always thinks she's going to say something, but she never does.

Not that he blames her. He can't think of anything to say, either. Not to her, not to his friends. Even Luna and Ginny, who he didn't see for months, and spent what seemed like every night lying awake in his too-empty dormitory, sleeplessly praying for their safety. They're safe now, all of them, and he could Floo down to Ottery St Catchpole any day, but what would he say?

What on earth would he _say_?

Besides. Ginny's got her hands full, with a dead brother and a war-hero boyfriend who looks closer to dropping dead of exhaustion with every funeral. And Luna's got old Xeno, and everyone knows he had a breakdown after the Death Eaters took his daughter. They were all of them so close, back at Hogwarts – he remembers sneaking down the deserted corridors after-hours, feeling like they were one person, so in accord they didn't need words or even gestures, only had to look at one another to understand.

But they aren't at Hogwarts any longer, and everything's changed.

He sees them at the funerals, and they see him, and none of them _really_ see one another, and sometimes he thinks he used up all his hope fighting the war.

* * *

Six weeks after the end of it all, there's the Battle of Hogwarts Memorial.

It's a big do. Dress robes. Speeches from Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Professor McGonagall, and the other Heads of Houses, and a load of Ministry bigwigs Neville sort-of-not-quite recognises, and Lee Jordan, of all people. What seems like most of wizarding Britain packed out on the lawn beside the lake, standing room only under the painfully blue sky.

The sun's shining bright, like it was the day of Dumbledore's funeral, and it seems wrong. Surely there should be rain, and thunder, dark forbidding skies, dark as _that_ night – all of it playing out again in Neville's mind. The screaming, the curses flying everywhere, ricocheting off walls, deafening and blinding, the blood on the steps of the Astronomy Tower, tripping over corpses as he ran – and against the idyllic backdrop of azure skies and the rich green grass, it's just _wrong_.

He's starting to shake as Harry gets up from his seat at the front row. Harry is ashen-faced, rail-thin, looks about to pass out, and Neville would worry about him. Would worry if he wasn't shaking so hard, cold with sweat, hands twisting themselves over each other in his lap, remembering Hagrid holding the corpse and Ginny keening and thinking _this is it, it's all over, we're finished_. And for a moment he's back there – suspended in that moment of wordless horror –

Then Harry waves his wand, and reveals the monument.

It's carved out of some iridescent stone, a blue so deep it's almost black, with pearlescent veins running through it like stars in the night sky. Hewn into the shape of two figures, a young witch and a young wizard, in Hogwarts uniform, standing side-by-side, wands aloft, hands linked and raised high in triumph, faces turned up to the sky.

Harry takes his seat again, and Minerva McGonagall stands once more. She starts to read names, and as she does so, silver ribbons fly from the tip of her wand, spelling out each name. Then there's a flash of light, and the letters are etched in silver on the plinth of the monument.

She reads the roll call of the dead, that strong stern Highlands voice shaking, and Neville knows them all. Some more, some less, but he knows every face, every name written in stone, carved into a monument enchanted to stand, undamaged, forever. And he saw all the bodies in the battle, but that was just a fever-dream, reality swept away on a wave of violence. He went to all the funerals, all of them, three a day some days, but all that was a haze, a blur on the other side of that thin layer of ice.

Now it's real.

It's real. He lived, and so many of his friends lived, but so many died, and _children_ , they were all of them children, and he's crying now, and he feels like he will never, never stop.

Everyone is on their feet now, a sea of people breaking and flowing about him. He can't make anything out, tears shattering his vision, a rush of voices pounding in his ears, and he's lost. Sobbing and shaking and looking around him, lost, like the child he hasn't let himself be since the Department of Mysteries, and he's alone. Alone in all this crowd and where can he go now? Where can he go from here? He's broken through the ice but now the lake will drown him –

Suddenly, there are arms around him. Gentle hands on his shoulders, his back, pulling him close. He presses his face against the curve of a neck that smells of radishes, of wildflowers, of _Luna_. Instinctively he wraps his arms tight around her slight slim body, clings on as though she is his only lifeline. She might be. She might well be, and right now he thinks if she is, that'll be enough.

Luna strokes his hair, her own flyaway locks brushing his face, soft and warm and heavy with that scent he'd know anywhere. She's shaking too, breaths hitching her whole body, and after a moment she hides her own face, damp with tears, against his shoulder. And there they stand, a circuit completed, holding each other as they cry and cry and cry.

He's always hated the thought of Luna crying – she is a girl made for laughter and dancing, meant to smile as bright as the sun above – but here and now, he doesn't. Deep in his heart he knows this is something they both of them need, after everything, an out-letting, thunder breaking after weeks of summer-storm oppression. And they have each other. They aren't alone. They're Neville-and-Luna, and it hurts, by Merlin, it hurts, but if nothing else, they have each other.

Then a voice breaks through the blurred roar that surrounds them. It's raw with pain but fierce even now, and if Ginny Weasley ever loses that ferocity, Neville thinks the world just might stop turning. "Luna, Neville, oh –"

He lifts his head at that little crack as she loses her thread of thought, and there she is. Face flushed, eyes bloodshot, lips trembling, head held high. Not even trying to hide the fact she's crying. Luna's trembling in his arms and Ginny's standing there, red-haired, red-eyed, red-faced, and both of them beautifully, defiantly _alive_.

It's been six weeks, they've seen each other at funerals almost every day, but this is the first time in what feels like forever that they've really been together. The three of them united. And they're all alive.

It's almost a surprise to hear himself say, "I thought – I thought I'd lose you. Both of you. Between the Death Eaters and the Ministry and – oh God, I thought I'd lose you." His voice sounds weak, like some plaintive child, but he doesn't have the energy to be ashamed.

Ginny says, "You didn't. You didn't." She goes up on tiptoe, grabs at his collar and tugs him down, kisses his forehead. "You two are never fucking getting rid of me, alright?" she says, and that draws a watery chuckle out of Neville as she slides her arm around Luna, kisses the crown of her head, smoothes down her hair.

"That's –" Neville's voice breaks a little, and he swallows hard. "That's good to know."

Finally, Luna looks up at them. She's still crying, but now she's smiling through the tears, shaky but sincere, and that makes something twist in his heart, painful and sweet. "I love you," she says, looking from Ginny to Neville and back again. "I love you both so much."

And he knows that she doesn't mean it the way he's dreamt of hearing, means it in a _brother-sister-partner-in-crime_ way, but he doesn't care. As they stand there, the three of them united in a tangle of arms, the sun bright above them, he thinks this would be enough for a lifetime. They've survived the Carrows and Snape and Voldemort. Nothing – _nothing_ – can break them apart now.

Neville looks at the two best friends he has ever had, and they look at him, Ginny's hand pressed against his where they're both holding Luna. He smiles, and for the first time in what could be decades, he's lost track, he means it.

* * *

That night he wakes awash with cold sweat and adrenaline, an abortive scream dragging its way out of his throat unbidden. The sheets are wrapped tight around him, and for a moment he doesn't know where he is, flails against them, sure he's being held down by some Death Eater curse, somewhere dark, unfamiliar, and he's got to get away, Merlin, he's got to get away or he'll _die_ , or his _friends –_

His bedroom door slams open and he lets out another yelp, groping for his wand –

And then his grandmother is saying, "Dear, are you ill, what in Heaven's name is going on?", and it's her familiar old face lit by wandlight, her unfamiliar expression of not exasperation but genuine, sick-at-heart fear, and – just a nightmare.

It was just a nightmare.

Neville wipes his forehead with the back of a shaking hand. "Yeah, no, I'm – I was dreaming. That's all. It's nothing."

His grandmother hesitates, there in the doorway. She looks ancient, he thinks suddenly, the wandlight throwing all the lines and wrinkles in her face into unforgiving relief. Somehow, he's never thought of her as _old_ , because she's always looked the same, all his life, and that's all he's ever known, and Augusta Longbottom is decidedly far from _frail_ , anyway. But now, now she looks old. Old, and weary, and uncertain.

He's never known her to be uncertain, either.

She says, quietly, "Neville, do you want to – I mean to say, if you want to talk to me about, ah, _things_ , you can."

The offer hangs there in the half-darkness.

For a moment Neville's hit by anger, gut-deep and childlike, that she's never said that before. Not when he was a lonely, parentless little boy whose family all thought him a disappointment. Not when McGonagall owled her, over and over, about how awful Snape was being, how he was too shy, too nervous, and it was dragging him down. Not when the Lestranges escaped Azkaban and suddenly the family tragedy was the talk of the school. Only now, when he's watched friends die, when he's fought Death Eaters and watched _them_ die, when it feels like too little far too late.

But no. No. He's not a child. She means it, means it with all of her heart, as much as her stiff-upper-lip iron reserve will let her express. After all, she has her own scars on the inside, just as he does. A lonely, parentless little boy and a lonely, childless old lady, a matched set.

He opens his mouth to tell her –

Tell her what? How it felt to watch the Carrows Cruciate twelve-year-olds and try to hex them and be whipped by Filch while they laughed and carried on? How it felt to lead his friends into a battle, knowing damn well it'd be a miracle if they came out the other side? How it felt to step over their bodies, to slip-slide through blood and vomit and viscera, too lost in fear to spare them a thought?

She was in the First War, he knows that, but this … this is something else. Something beyond her.

He wishes, passionately, fiercely, that Luna or Ginny or one of the others were here.

"Really, I'm fine," he tells his grandmother, smiles and does his best to make it look natural.

Another moment of her hovering, then she says, "I'll make you a cup of cocoa, dear," and he's alone in the dark again.

* * *

Two days after the Memorial, Neville gets an owl from Ginny. It's that tiny, hyperactive owl of Ron's, the one that they named Pig for reasons that have never been forthcoming, and it whizzes round and round the Lodge, knocking over ornaments until his grandmother nearly curses it. The note is hastily scrawled – Ginny's writing is always messy, she writes fast and carelessly, always too full of restless energy to be bothered with something like making her letters legible. Thankfully, Neville's had ample practice deciphering them.

 _Neville – we're having a picnic for lunch – Floo over & join us – that's an order, no more hermit-ing for you! _  
G x  
P.S. Mum says to invite your grandma over for tea.

Short and to-the-point, as with everything about Ginny, but it brings a little lump to his throat. There's a part of him that'll always be a chubby eleven-year-old, lonely and awkward and astonished to be valued by anyone, and there's no dramatic protestation of everlasting friendship that could move him as much as the casual brevity of that letter. It's off-hand, simple, the way Ginny treats her brothers, the way she shows she cares.

He leaves a note on the mantelpiece for his grandmother, and Floos to the Burrow. It's only his second visit, but he recognises it as soon as he steps out of the fireplace, almost instantly swept up into a rib-cracking bear hug by Molly Weasley. This house is – well, the _homeliest_ house he's ever set foot in. It's a little like the Lodge in the way every surface and the air itself is saturated with magic, like Hogwarts, like the Leaky Cauldron, like any old magic building. But the Lodge has always felt _cold_ to him, stale, stultified as his grandmother clings onto the memory of the past, while the Burrow is warm, alive right down to the floorboards.

After looking him up and down and announcing he's much too thin, Molly presses a slice of cake on him. He doesn't protest, lets her fuss over him for a while – after the year they've had, everyone's thinner these days, worn out and worn down and only just beginning the slow climb back up to normality. And he knows Molly well enough to understand that for her, _normal_ is mothering anyone under twenty-five who gets within half a mile of her, and besides, her cake is brilliant.

When he's finished the cake, assured her that yes, he'll be visiting more often, yes, he's eating well, yes, he'll be getting honorary NEWTs, yes, he'll pass along her invitation to his grandmother, she gives him another tight hug and says, "The others went to have their picnic on the meadow at the far side of the hill. I sent them with plenty of food, don't you worry about that, dear. Oh, I'm so glad to see you here, little Luna's been missing you something rotten, our Ginny as well, and it'll do Harry a power of good having you all about –" she breaks off, dabs at her eyes. "Now, now, be off with you, dear."

He goes, feeling suddenly guilty for getting as lost in that grey, unfeeling haze as he did. The others must have been as lonely as he was, and he didn't – well. It's done. Over. He's here now.

It's another beautiful day, the sky cloudless azure, a light breeze keeping the sun from being overpowering. The summer seems to be shaping up for un-British perfection, as though the weather itself is overjoyed, celebrating the war's end in a way Neville can't bring himself to.

A short walk, and then he finds the meadow – all long grass and wildflowers, a stream cutting through it, and perhaps half a mile beyond that, the unmistakeable tottering tower of the Lovegoods' house. As soon as Neville comes over the top of the hill, Ginny spots him, waves cheerily. She's sitting on a red and white checked picnic blanket spread out under a willow tree, Harry next to her, Ron lying with his head in Hermione's lap on Harry's other side, Luna beside Ginny. Molly wasn't joking, there's a slightly alarming amount of food laid out on the blanket: sandwiches and salads and savoury pies and quiches, lemonade and Butterbeer, a Honeydukes selection box, and a small mountain of home-baked cakes and scones.

"Did you lot rob the Hogwarts kitchens, or what?" Neville asks, sitting down next to Luna.

"Nah, it's just everyone keeps sending Harry cakes and sweets and things," Ron tells him, tossing over a Chocolate Frog. "You should have seen the amount of free Honeydukes stuff we got, I'm telling you. It's been great."

"It's been _weird_ ," Harry says. He's pale and drawn, but at least looks less exhausted, less deathly ill than he did at the Memorial and all the funerals. According to Neville's grandmother, rumour has it that Harry had some kind of nervous collapse when the dust cleared after the Battle of Hogwarts. If he did, Neville can't blame him – thinks it's nothing short of a miracle it didn't happen earlier, what with all that Boy Who Lived, Chosen One rubbish forever in the papers.

Neville's family has been built around tragedy, defined by it, unable to escape its orbit, for as long as he can remember. That for most of his life it was old news, not worth column inches in the Prophet, and therefore at least _private_ made that pain just about bearable. For Harry? He can't imagine it.

The last year or so dragged Neville and the rest of the DA out of childhood, kicking and screaming, and that's been hard enough to deal with. At times, it felt like the weight of the others' reliance on him would break his back – he doesn't even want to _think_ about how it's been for Harry. So much, so young, it's no wonder he's gaunt, green eyes shadowed and sleepless.

Ginny squeezes Harry's hand, and gives him a smile. It's very nearly the wryly affectionate _you're-an-idiot-but-you're-amazing-anyway_ smirk she's given Neville a thousand times, but there's a slowness, a soft heat behind it that's never been directed at him. When Harry smiles back, he could be his old self again, the intense but good-humoured kid Neville used to share a dormitory with. He reaches out, strokes Ginny's cheek with the backs of his knuckles, and Neville looks away on instinct. It's not even really PDA, but there's something in that small touch that's far too intimate to watch.

He picks up one of the paper plates, starts helping himself to the great stack of food before them.

"Will you be going back to Hogwarts this year?" Hermione asks brightly. "I am, I just hate the thought of missing out on all that important material from seventh year, the honorary NEWTs just –"

Ron groans elaborately, throws a grape in her face. "Merlin, Hermione, give it a rest with the school talk, can't you? I swear, everyone else in the _world_ jumped at the chance of avoiding more exams, but no, not you, it's disgusting –"

"Just because _you_ don't value education, Ronald –"

Those two will never change. Grinning, Neville leans over towards Luna, "Worse than an old married couple, aren't they?"

Luna smiles at him, and oh, he's missed that look on her face, all peace and half in some other world, and the way her pale eyes sparkle when she's happy. For a moment he can barely breathe, because she is _so_ beautiful, freckles blooming on tanning skin, hair loose and floating on the breeze, the curve of those sweet-sexy rose lips – "I think it's terribly sweet," she says. "I used to think they didn't like each other much, but it's just how they flirt. Like Kneazles. Isn't that the sweetest thing?"

"Kneazles flirt like those two? By fighting?" That's the other thing about Luna, always coming out with things he's never heard before. Keeps him on his toes. Even if half of it is just more of old Xeno's – how to put it – _eccentricities._

He's caught off guard when a grape hits him in the forehead. "Oi, did you lot just call us Kneazles?"

"Well, I have always said you look like one, Ron," Ginny pipes up, and that's it. They're all lost to fits of laughter, and there's fruit and sweets flying every which way, and it all gets a little out of hand.

By the time the food fight dies down, even Hermione is pink and breathless, face liberally streaked with chocolate and cream. Harry and Ron are leaning on each other, shaking with silent giggles that bubble up again the instant either of them pull themselves together, while Ginny and Luna are sword-fighting with breadsticks. Neville's flat on his back, taking deep breaths, sides aching.

A part of him, curled up quiet and melancholy in the farthest recesses of his mind, still whispers, _but what about Fred, and Lavender, and Ernie, and Colin, and ..._ Over and over it runs, the broken record, the too-long litany of names, his friends who'll never sit out laughing in a meadow at the height of summer, not ever again. It's like a wound inside, a sore tooth his tongue can't stop seeking out, that list, that endless childish protest that _it's just not fair_ that they aren't here.

And the grief, the irrational survivor's guilt, it's a part of Neville now, he's more and more certain of that every day. It's never going away.

But he doesn't really want it to. All the things they've all gone through, they _happened_. None of them – not him, or Harry, or Luna, or any of them – can go back to who they were, before the war. Even Dumbledore couldn't work a spell strong enough to undo that.

The sun's so bright, and there's long grass and wildflowers crisp against his skin, Harry yelling encouragement now as Luna and Ginny duel around in circles, Ron and Hermione kissing in the shade of the willow. They can't go back to before, but this isn't so bad.

Luna knocks Ginny's breadstick out of her hand, and Neville and Harry applaud as she holds up her own makeshift sword in triumph. She looks over to Neville, long hair a corn-silk flag in the wind, grin as brilliant as the sun –

This isn't so bad at all.

* * *

Floo-ing down to have lunch in Devon becomes a habit.

Harry's staying at the Burrow, and Hermione is there most of the week, Apparating over to her parents' house with Ron at weekends. George is around, too, not always, but often, with either Lee Jordan or Angelina Johnson in tow. From what Neville can gather, they're staying with him in London, helping keep the joke shop afloat. It has to be an easier job by far than keeping _George_ afloat, hollow-cheeked and withdrawn as he is.

So there's always Ginny and Harry and Luna, and usually Ron and Hermione, and maybe George and Lee or Angelina, and a picnic blanket, and enough food for a small army. The weather holds, and it's a good thing, too, because Luna insists on eating outside, even the one day the heat breaks into a short but dramatic thunderstorm. She hates to be inside, these days, tells Neville matter-of-factly it's the result of months cooped up in the Malfoys' cellar, sick at heart and longing for daylight and fresh air.

After that, he hasn't the heart to try to get her to come inside when it rains, stays with her when the others take cover – apparently Harry, Ron and Hermione spent most of the year camping, and are heartily sick of being at the mercy of the elements. Neville ruins a pair of shoes the day of the thunderstorm, but doesn't mind, because Luna's more _Luna_ than ever, dancing out in the downpour, throwing her head back and laughing for joy up at the heavens. By the time it's over, she's soaked to the skin and shivering, so bedraggled she looks like she just escaped a kelpie, grinning wide, and not for the first time Neville wonders how he's lucky enough to have her as a friend.

Mostly, though, it's bright and warm, and they all eat outside. George hardly talks, only picks at his food, but he can be persuaded onto a broom, and Hermione enchants pieces of fruit to fly, and that's a whole afternoon gone. Neville still hates flying, so he referees, while Luna or Lee commentate, and there's nothing so guaranteed to bring a laugh out of George. After one of those afternoons, as they clear up the picnic, Ginny tells Neville quietly that it helps Harry, too. A good few hours of an anarchic Quidditch match played with fruit to wear him out, and he sleeps better, goes longer between the nightmares that pull him back awake.

It's not all picnics and mucking about on broomsticks, though. While the Weasleys went into hiding and the Burrow was abandoned, it got looted and smashed up by the Death Eaters and some of their Snatcher cronies. Once the war was over, they quickly made it liveable again, but there's still quite extensive curse-damage that needs repairing. Every now and then, they come across a nasty surprise that got left behind by the Death Eaters – a chest of drawers enchanted to become carnivorous, floorboards that burst into flames at random intervals. Then there's the Lovegoods' house, which is a whole other kettle of fish, what with the sheer number of bizarre and unpredictable artefacts in the place, none of which Xeno can bear to part with.

Neville falls into the repair operation almost without noticing. One day, Molly finds Venomous Tentacular shoots emerging from behind one of the cupboards in the Burrow, and asks his advice. A few days after that, he helps Luna, Harry and Ginny transfigure the main staircase of Luna's house back to stability. Then it just becomes habit.

It's hard going, sometimes. Sometimes Luna will get claustrophobic and panic, or Harry's neurotically protective hovering over Ginny will start them rowing, or something will make a sudden noise and Neville will freeze with the instant, thought-obliterating conviction he's back at Hogwarts, duelling for his life. So yeah, sometimes, it's hard.

But it's okay. They have an unspoken rule, the four of them, not to hold any of it against each other. Harry might be the only one who wakes up screaming, magic out of hand and hurling objects round the room with the force of his fear, but he's not the only one who can't sleep for dreaming. They've all got their scars, all of them hiding wounds that can't be healed, only stitched over.

But it's okay, because this is what their lives are about, now: patching up broken things as best they can.

* * *

For Neville's eighteenth birthday, they have afternoon tea at Longbottom Lodge. Augusta and Molly have a grand time catching one another up on the latest gossip, while Arthur and Xeno get into a slightly at-cross-purposes discussion on Muggle technology, somehow roping Hermione into it along with them. Then there's Seamus and Dean, and the Patils, Susan and Hannah, and, Merlin, it's almost overwhelming. Just – seeing all the Hogwarts crowd, without some awful sword of Damocles hanging over them or another agonising funeral on the horizon.

Of course, there are still the silent empty spaces in the room – will be forever, and there he goes, worrying at that sore tooth again – but they seem less glaring, today. It's easier to focus on the way Ron grins and reddens as Parvati asks him if Hermione's popped the question yet, on the way Hannah laughs again, on the way Dean lays his head on Seamus's shoulder and Seamus looks at him, bright-eyed and beaming. And with the others here, the friends Neville hasn't seen in weeks, it's as though he can look through their eyes to see how far he and the Devon lot have come.

The changes have been slow, incremental and all but invisible from the inside, but they're there, and it makes his heart lift. He can see it now: the weight Harry's put back on, the colour back in his cheeks, Ginny and Hermione's faces wiped clean of exhaustion-worry shadows, Luna hemmed in by walls and people and only having to cling to Neville's hand for reassurance every now and then. The cracks are still there, but they are holding together.

After a couple of hours, Luna goes up on tiptoe to whisper in Neville's ear, "Come out with me for some fresh air?"

He squeezes her hand. "Yeah, 'course."

They weave their way out of the dining room, and Neville leads her down the hall, out into the back garden. The Lodge may be his grandmother's, filled with her ornaments and books and memories, but the garden is Neville's place, has been since he was a little boy, hiding in the hollow tree with an Everlasting Gobstopper and a comic book. It's always been his place to think, to escape to when he needs to, and when he got a little older, to tend and nurture and make his own.

"Oh, how beautiful," Luna breathes when she sees it, hand coming to her mouth in astonishment.

"I did my best," Neville says, looking down at his feet. Maybe one day he'll know what to do with compliments, but that day is not today.

Late July and the roses are in full bloom. He planted the flowerbeds two years ago, worked it out so there would always be something flowering, always be bright splashes of colour to greet him whenever he stepped outside. All of them are beautiful, and like a good parent he tries not to have favourites, but the roses are particularly lovely.

Luna lets go of his hand, drifts over to the bush that climbs up over a trellis at the very centre of the garden's south wall. She reaches out to touch the roses, yellow, petals flushing fiery at the very tips. The rich vermilion-crimson flickers, shifts like real flame, the only visible sign to set them apart from ordinary, Muggle-bred plants. "I've never seen any like these before."

"They only grow here." Neville walks up to stand beside her, runs a finger carefully along the thick stems. They're warm to his touch, make his fingertips tingle, the subtle magic inside them recognising him, as always. "My dad created them, grew them for my mum."

"How beautiful," Luna says again. This time, she squeezes his hand, and he swallows hard.

The sound of laughter and chatter, raucous and merry, drifts out to them from inside. It strikes Neville that this is the first time his friends have visited the lodge, and suddenly he realises how much brighter, how much more _alive_ it makes the old house seem. He should have brought them here long ago, let Ginny's energy and Luna's wit chase away the cobwebs, the memories of what was lost and what never had a chance to be. In so many ways, he's always been haunted by the ghosts of parents still living, his grandmother by the ghost of a son lost but not gone, and he always feared bringing his friends here. They'd feel the chill of that loss, and run, he'd thought.

He knows better now. Trusts what holds them all together: he and Ginny and Luna, and Harry and Ron and Hermione, and then all six of them.

There are tears welling up, and it's silly. Ridiculous. He's just so –

"I made you a present," Luna says, calmly. She reaches into the pocket of her hand-stitched dress, retrieves a scroll of parchment. When she taps it with her wand, it unfurls to reveal a drawing.

It's a portrait of Neville himself, stretched out on his back in the meadow, holding a blade of grass between his thumbs and blowing so it trumpets, hair a tangle, t-shirt riding up. The lines are all loose and soft, charcoal, and it's got such atmosphere, such depth to it _._ He knows without asking that she sketched this while watching him, her back against that old willow tree. It's simple, and beautiful, so many tiny details – the crook of his nose, his uneven dimples, the birthmark on his stomach – and he can't speak. The words just aren't there.

"Do you not like it?" Luna asks. She still sounds calm, always does, he's never seen her get angry or hurt on her own behalf, and sometimes he wishes she would. Wishes she could see how beautiful, how precious she is to him, that he had some way of showing her through his eyes, the way her drawing shows himself through hers.

Then it hits him, and before he can think twice, he reaches out, uses his wand to pluck one of his mother's roses. Pulse fluttering in his temples, his wrists, he gently slides it into place behind her ear, threading it through her hair.

She stares up at him, eyes huge and bottomless, lips parted.

He says, "Luna, I love it. Thank you." Swallows hard. Starts, "I –"

"Oi, you two! Birthday cake time!" Ron's voice makes them both jump, and Neville feels all the blood rush to his cheeks.

Luna gives him this shy little smile, squeezes his hand again, and it's all he can do to let her lead him back inside.

* * *

The next day is Harry's eighteenth birthday, and the date set by Kingsley Shacklebolt for the ceremony to award him the Order of Merlin, First Class.

The ceremony is held in the Grand Chamber of the Ministry, and apparently attracts more spectators than any award has since Dumbledore's. Neville is one of the invited guests, has a seat on the floor of the Chamber, between Hermione and Professor McGonagall. He keeps his eyes forward, avoids glancing up at the public gallery, the gawkers hanging over the balconies to get a closer look.

It's short – the Minister keeps his speech brief, (Neville's not quite sure if that's out of consideration for Harry or because Kingsley's naturally a man of few words, but he's intensely grateful) pins the gleaming medal to the front of Harry's dress robes, Harry's _'thank you_ 's are sincere but rapid-fire. All in all, twenty-five minutes at most, and a lot of that is waiting for the thunderous applause to die down.

This is supposed to be celebratory, Neville thinks. On some level, it does feel that way. If there's anyone who deserves recognition for what they've gone through, it's Harry. After watching his friend get thrown down and spat on by the Ministry, he's damn glad to see him get this moment of vindication. Maybe it'll even go some way to easing the guilt complex that has him in a chokehold tighter than any Devil's Snare.

But.

But the bright lights of the Chamber, and the flashbulbs of the reporters, and the heat of all those gazes from above, it throws everything into painfully sharp relief. Laughing over tea and cake in the Lodge let Neville see how much things have healed for Harry, for all of them. This fierce attention does the opposite.

All he can see is that Harry's still too thin, lips cracked and nails bitten, swoops of violet under his eyes. When he stands on the podium, he hunches his shoulders, can't stop fidgeting with his hands, and it's painfully obvious he wishes he could be somewhere, anywhere, else. Neville isn't close enough to see for certain, but he'd swear Harry's trembling, the way he does when it all catches up to him and he can't stand being around people for a while.

If they were in Devon, they'd back off, let him go wander through the meadow and over the hills, or sit under the willow tree, or curl up on the Weasleys' sofa. Trust that he'd sidle back in when he's ready, and slot right back into the conversation and whatever it is they're doing that day. This is the new normal for Harry, as far as Neville can tell, and by now they're all of them used to it. It's just another piece of their patchwork lives, like Ron and Hermione getting lost in each other's eyes, or the times Ginny's temper flares out of control. It's fine. It really is.

But they can't do that here. And when they step out through the Chamber's double doors and into the Atrium, there's going to be a bloody _mob_ of press who don't give a damn about Harry's state of mind, and strangers who do, but who in their enthusiasm will crush him anyway.

Neville looks sideways at Hermione, who's smiling, tears sparkling in her eyes. In her lap, her hands are twisting round each other convulsively. She's sensing a meltdown looming, too, he's almost sure of it. They'd talked, before, Ron and Ginny and their parents promising to be a human shield, keep anyone from getting too close, going too far – but none of them had reckoned on a crowd this size, or the sheer number of reporters. Stupid, really. Should have guessed it'd be an international story.

On impulse, Neville leans over towards Professor McGonagall. As inconspicuously as he can, he mutters, "Professor, help me run interference with the press people?"

She gives him that terribly school-familiar look of keen-eyed appraisal, then nods. "Certainly," she says, and then turns to Horace Slughorn beside her, and whispers in hisear. Then _Slughorn_ says something to Hagrid, who is on his other side. For a moment, Neville has a moment of mental vertigo at the realisation that he's started a game of _pass-it-on_ between the Hogwarts senior staff. Then the ceremony is over and they're standing and following Kingsley and Harry out of the Chamber, and _here it comes_.

* * *

In the end, they avoid a meltdown. The next day in the papers there are photographs of Harry looking particularly deer-in-the-headlights, wide-eyed and pale, and since Neville successfully managed to collar the hack the Daily Prophet sent, he's quoted, gushingly, in huge letters on the front page, but there's no meltdown. It's awkward and stressful but in the end it's a win.

They recuperate at the Burrow. Harry vanishes out into the garden as soon as he climbs out of the fireplace, and Ginny goes to keep a distant watchful eye on him. Hermione, Ron, and Neville sit around the kitchen table with Molly and Arthur, sipping tea and finishing off the mountain of rock cakes Hagrid sent for Harry's birthday. Neville expects Luna will be along in a bit – she opted out of coming along because she's been getting better, but her claustrophobia is still pretty nasty.

"Well, after all that, I'm bloody glad _we_ didn't get the Order, too," Ron says after awhile, gesturing between himself, Hermione and Neville and grinning.

"Don't count your Hippogriffs before they hatch," his father tells him cheerfully, "The Minister tells me when the dust has settled a little more, they're going to be handing out Orders left, right and centre. I'm fairly sure you're in the list somewhere."

Simultaneously, Ron groans, "Oh _no_ ," and Molly exclaims, "My little boy with an Order of Merlin, oh _Ron_ ," and bursts into tears, hugging him tight to her.

"Mum, gerroff –"

For a moment, Neville manages to keep a straight face, then catches Hermione's eye, and they both crack up laughing.

Yeah. Definitely feeling more and more like a win.

* * *

June and July were bright and sunny, as near-perfect as anyone could hope for from a British summer. August is still sunny, but hotter, the air growing heavy and oppressive, thick with humidity. It's a mercy that they've finished all the heavy work that needed doing on the Burrow and the Lovegoods' house, and there's more time to simply lie in the shade, quiet.

There's tension in the air, and it's not just the slow, relentless build-up of heat, the roiling, brooding storm clouds that never quite burst. It's August, and suddenly September is close enough to touch. Owls arrive, bringing book lists and time tables and a badge marked _Head Girl_ for Hermione.

In a matter of weeks, the girls are going back to Hogwarts. The summer's nearly over, and they can't picnic in a Devon meadow forever.

Voldemort's dead, Hogwarts is re-opening, the world keeps turning.

Neville's grandmother asks him one evening, "Have you decided what you're going to do with yourself now, dear? You still haven't replied to the Minister's letter."

There's just a hint of that old, thin-lipped, quiet-voiced disappointment in her words. Neville's left hand clenches into a fist on his knee, but he's had too much practice lying to the faces of Death Eaters to let his cold unknown-fear show. "I'm considering my options," he tells her. He lies awake for a long time that night.

He finds Ron the next day, sitting with Hermione at the side of the stream that runs beside the meadow, dangling their bare feet in the cool water. Neville rolls up the legs of his jeans, kicks off his trainers, and joins them. "Ron, you got a letter from Kingsley, too, didn't you?"

"That thing about joining the Aurors, straight-up, no messing about? Yeah, I did, mate." Back at Hogwarts, Ron and Harry used to talk about becoming Aurors all the time, high on the sheer idea of it. Heroism and danger had never been a combination those two could resist, even when they were only eleven years old. Ron doesn't sound so mad about it now, frowning into the distance, picking at some little stick on the ground, hurling it into the stream as if in anger.

"Hell of an offer, isn't it," Neville says. For as long as he can remember, _being an Auror_ has been this – this _sacrament_ , held up by his grandmother and all his uncles and aunts as the pinnacle of everything. The zenith of his parents' mythical greatness. This one thing that everything else Frank and Alice might have been, once upon a time, boiled down to.

He still doesn't know what his father's favourite record was, whether his mother wore perfume, if she liked to read books or listen to the radio, whether he ate his eggs fried or boiled. There's a thousand and one little details that make up a person, and sometimes it feels to Neville like his family erased all of those and left him just one thing – _they were Aurors_ – instead.

Ron snorts. "Guess that's our reward for, y'know, killing Voldemort, surviving that whole damn bloodbath." He sounds as bitter as Neville feels the nights he gives up on sleeping, and sits up with a mug of cocoa to watch the dawn break.

Quietly, Hermione says, "He appreciates what we've all been through. Kingsley, I mean. He's the one who made Harry promise to take at least six months off to recuperate, remember?"

"Yeah, I do."Ron leans his head on her shoulder, sighs. "It's just ... yeah. This whole thing's a bit of a mind-fuck."

Neville laughs a little at that. "You can say that again." He picks a blade of grass, holds it between his thumbs and trumpets out a little fanfare. "So, you're not gonna take Kingsley up on it, then?" he asks, doing his best to sound casual.

"I dunno." Ron runs his hand through his hair, groans a little. "It's not like I've got a whole load of other choices, didn't exactly spend the last year thinking about my _career_ , you know?"

"Me neither." Hell, most of the time he didn't spend the last year expecting to live long enough for it to even be an issue. "Part of me wants to join up," he admits, and wonders if they can guess that's as much the part of him that's still caught in the Battle of Hogwarts, as it is the part that's desperate for any small shared connection with his parents. He doesn't know what that says about him. "And then part of me's just ..." He trails off. Can't articulate what he thinks. It doesn't matter, he knows they understand anyway.

There's a short pause, and then Hermione says, "I think we've all risked our lives enough to deserve a little peace."

And that's it, that's exactly it. He wants it, knows the Ministry still has a terrifying amount of rubble to clear – the Death Eater trials haven't even started yet – and he wants to be a part of that. If nothing else the last months have taught him that when you've picked up the pieces, put them back together, sealed the cracks as best you can, to leave something that has strength even in its flaws ... well. There's pain in that process, but it needs to be done, and he knows he can do it.

It's just a question of what it'll cost him. How much he has left to give.

If he can stand another year, five years, ten, of the dreams and the cold-sweat flashbacks and the litany of names of the ones he couldn't save.

Ron says, "I'm thinking about it. I mean, there's nothing that says we have to sign our bloody lives over to them, is there? We could do a couple years, help Kingsley clean up the whole mess, then sod off and do ... whatever else we want to do. Right?" He looks to Hermione, eyes big and puppy-ish, waiting for approval.

She smiles, and suddenly Neville sees not the awkward little girl he met seven years ago, bossy and painfully perfectionist and married to the library, but the woman she's becoming. "Right. You don't have to, I don't know, decide on your destinies forever and ever. We can be a bit more like normal people now."

"Perish the thought." Ron gives a mock shudder, and they all laugh.

Neville kicks his feet in the stream, watches the play of sunlight over the water. For some reason he thinks of Potions lessons in the dungeons. How terrified he'd been of Severus Snape when Snape was nothing more than an overgrown bully, and how, that last year, when he'd broken into the Headmaster's office with Luna and Ginny, his terror had seemed like such a small thing. So easy to ignore.

 Snape had had Filch flog him, after, to make an example of him, and had watched Neville's face the whole time, smirking the way he used to when Neville's cauldron exploded again. Neville never once broke eye contact, and, Merlin, his back had been on fire, but he hadn't been afraid. Just furious. He remembers thinking, _do what you want to me, you bastard, I'll never give in._

In some ways, it was easier then. He'd always known what the right direction was. All he had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, and keep everyone else going beside him.

"Yeah, I'm thinking about that, too," he says to Ron. "Year or two, maybe, see how it goes."

"Take it one thing at a time," Ron says, and there's that half-nostalgic, half-horrified tone in his voice, the tone he and Hermione and Harry always get when they talk about what they did, that last year.

"It's not a bad strategy," Hermione agrees. "Do you two fancy going down to the village for an ice cream?"

* * *

"I'm scared of going back."

Neville's kneeling beside Luna in her father's garden, helping her plant the seedlings Xeno's friend Aleister Morgan sent them from Tasmania. She's been calm all day, smiles coming easily, chatting away to a visiting Charlie Weasley, teasing Harry and Ginny when they started kissing under the willow – for a moment, he thinks he's misheard her. Must've done.

"Sorry, I didn't catch –"

Luna looks up at him through her long wispy fringe. "I'm scared of going back to Hogwarts," she tells him, matter-of-fact.

"Oh." Neville sits back on his heels, wipes a muddy hand over a sweat-sticky forehead. Hopes the storm that's brewing, hot and heavy, will break soon. He wets his lips, fumbles for words. "Is it because of – of Snape, and that?"

She wasn't at Hogwarts when things got _really_ terrible – was already locked away below Malfoy Manor when the floggings and Cruciatings became common-place – but she was there for enough. Was witness to more than enough.

"Partly. I was worried about feeling trapped, you know, but I wrote to Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick and they've made arrangements for my dormitory. But still, Hogwarts, well ..." she trails off, cheeks colouring slightly.

"The corridors get pretty crowded and all," Neville says, and leans toward her, so their shoulders press together. She's always so forthright, so open about everything, even things that hurt, but he knows she hates talking about the claustrophobia, the reminder of those weeks spent without freedom, without light. "You've been doing really well lately, though, Luna, and Hermione and Ginny will be there if you need them. I know you can do it."

The flicker of her smile makes his throat constrict. "Thank you, Neville. You're always so lovely."

And how he can respond to _that_ is beyond him – but luckily he doesn't have to. She goes on, "It's just. There are so many bad memories about Hogwarts, now, aren't there?"

"Yeah." He closes his eyes, breathes deep as that litany of names treads its well-worn path through his mind. Sees Death Eaters stalking the corridors, sees first-years shaking under the red light of the Cruciatus Curse, sees Michael Corner on his knees in the Great Hall, wrists chained and hauled above his head, his back a mass of blood and raw meat –

Once, he'd loved Hogwarts. Loved everything, or almost everything, about it. That great, sprawling castle had once been the cradle of all his dearest memories. Now? Now he's not sure if he could stomach even setting foot in the site of his nightmares again, let alone living there.

"It's almost the worst thing they did, Snape and the Carrows," he says, and it feels like he's dragging each word out. "Hogwarts was so – it used to be a happy place. And they turned it into –" A charnel-house, a torture chamber, a battlefield where children were murdered and became murderers themselves.

Luna's hand closes over his. Her palm is quite cool, even with the sun beating down on them and slicking Neville's shirt to his back. "We'll turn it back," she says. There's a tight undercurrent in her airy voice, and when he opens his eyes, he sees her face set into lines of fierce intent. It's the expression she wore when they set out to steal the Sword of Gryffindor from under the very nose of the tyrant Headmaster, and people think Luna Lovegood is crazy, is pathetic, but that's because they've never seen her like _this_.

If anyone can reclaim the halls of Hogwarts from the Death Eaters, it is her. Her and Ginny and Hermione. Not a combination to bet against.

Neville smiles, and without thinking, turns his hand under hers, twines their fingers together. "You will," he agrees.

The pad of Luna's thumb strokes over the knuckle of his forefinger, gently, back and forth, back and forth. Neville's entranced by the contrast between his hand and hers, the way his broad fingers dwarf hers, long and slim, creamy pale against his suntanned skin. They look so different, but they fit together as though they were made for it, both of them scarred by duels and blood-quills, streaked with mud and grass stains, cradling each other close.

Luna says, almost a whisper, "I'm afraid because I don't want things to change. This summer, with you and Harry and Ginny and everyone, it's been so ... I don't want to lose this."

And oh, he knows how she feels. By Merlin, he knows how she feels.

This fragile peace, the delicate web of meadow air and quiet company that's kept each of them from falling to pieces – what happens after that? When they can't ignore the endless ticking-over of time anymore, and things change – what happens then?

All the promises have already been made – to owl, to talk over the Floo, to visit at every Hogsmeade weekend. Hermione's working on enchanting some two-way mirrors so they can talk that way, too. They'll all keep in touch, that's never been a question – it's just the rest of it. Whatever it is that sits between them all, whatever alchemy it is, the perfect balance that was born out in that meadow and has let them heal, six inter-connected cogs falling into place.

It's this that Neville fears to lose. They'll still be friends – always will be, now, he thinks – but whether they can hold that web together when the girls are at Hogwarts and the distance between them spans the length of the country, that's the thing.

"I don't want to, either," Neville tells her. That's all he plans to say, but then words are spilling out and it's like he has no control over them at all, just talking on utter instinct. "I don't know how to cope on my own – with all the, the memories and dreams and things – I tried, on my own, but I couldn't, and I don't think I can. I mean, things have been getting better, and I know other people have it worse – _Harry_ has it worse – but. Us lot, you know, that's what's been letting it get better. Us."

Then he can't say any more. Not without letting go of the tears building up in his throat, behind his eyes, and he doesn't want to do that. He presses his lips together, looks away. Focuses on the garden. The Dirigible Plums are ripening, he notices. The first fruit might be ready before the girls go back to school.

"Harry's not the only one who's had to heal," Luna says softly, and shifts closer, so they're pressed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, right the way down, Luna's skinny bare knee against Neville's worn-out jeans. Suddenly he feels like he can barely breathe – not just the heat, but the proximity, and the knowledge he could just reach out – pull her to him, hold her, kiss her – but no.

No. That's not the comfort either of them needs, not now. Maybe not ever, and if Luna doesn't look at him that way, he won't ever push it. This – sitting beside her in the overgrown grass, talking and knowing, _knowing_ the other understands – is what matters, more than any kiss ever could. Them being _them_.

As if she's read his mind, Luna says, "I think _us_ has kept me going, too." She hesitates, then says, "When I was in that cellar, I – I used to think about you and Harry, how brave you are, and how clever Hermione is, and Ginny and Ron and how determined they are, and – it stopped me from being so alone. It kept me from giving in. You did, I mean."

Her voice is shaking, and she hardly ever talks about that time, and only in the most oblique terms when she does. Neville squeezes her hand, doesn't make a sound when she grips back hard enough that the bones of his knuckles grind together.

He doesn't think he'll ever have the words to tell her how much that means to him – that she thinks of him on a par with Harry Potter, that he helped her, however slightly, survive the Malfoys and their cage. Since May, he's been told over and over again that he's _an inspiration_ , at wakes and memorials and when he's just walking down Diagon Alley, but this is the first time he's even come close to believing it.

They sit like that for awhile, side by side, knee to knee, hand in hand. Saying nothing, just breathing, as the heavy late-summer storm clouds slowly build and broil overhead. For once, the silence doesn't feel awkward to Neville, and there's no anxious urge to somehow fill it itching under his skin.

Some things, he knows by now, don't need to be said aloud. She's held him close while he cried his way through the aftershocks of flashbacks, and he's stroked her hair when even being inside her own house was too much to bear. They've seen one another at their darkest hours, falling apart and grieving and furious, they know each other down to the core of their scarred souls.

And so, when Luna says, "I'll go get the rest of the Tasmanian Taloned Tomatoes, shall I?" he understands.

"Yeah, let's bed them down over here, they'll like getting the sun," he says. Smiles up at her, as she gives his hand one last squeeze, and stands up.

_We're still going to be us, when I go away to school, aren't we?_

_We are if I've anything to do with it._

* * *

Molly's birthday is the 15th of August. Neville hasn't known her that long, not _really_ known her – for years she was just Mrs Weasley, just Ron and Ginny's mum, distant and abstract the way parents are when you're a kid at school. But now, now he's fought beside her, shaken her hand and kissed her cheek after they buried her son, and he's spent practically the whole summer at her house, in her garden. He and Luna, like Harry and Hermione before them, have been drawn into the orbit of her family, been fussed over and fed like her own children, and Neville at least feels like he's known her forever.

There isn't an elaborate party – the Weasleys don't go in for grandeur much, unlike Augusta Longbottom, who always does, whether she can afford it or not. Instead it's just the family and old friends from Hogwarts and the Order, sitting out in the freshly de-gnomed garden.

Luna had had the idea that they should do all the cooking, lay on a nice big lunch for Molly in thanks for the sandwiches and homemade lemonade they've lived off since June. Everyone agreed it was a brilliant idea, though it was probably equally brilliant for Hermione to take over organising the whole thing. Neville saw Luna's draft menu, and it sounded like an absolute riot, but maybe a bit … _experimental_ for a low-key birthday party.

At any rate, Hermione somehow became the person in charge – the more things change, the more they stay the same – and after a slight accident with the garlic that really could have happened to anyone, she relegates Harry and Neville to washing up duty. That's probably for the best, too, in honesty. From everything he's heard, cooking sounds rather like Potions, and though there seem to be fewer opportunities for dramatic explosions, Neville doesn't doubt he'd be able to find them. It would be a shame to destroy the Burrow's kitchen after everything.

So that's how he and Harry end up in charge of the washing up, trying and mostly failing to do it by magic, and spending most of their time flicking soapy water in each other's faces. Neville's getting the worst of it, what with Harry's ridiculous hand-eye co-ordination, but he's still managing to soak him pretty efficiently.

"Behold our great war heroes, boys and girls," Ginny says as she walks past them, carrying a massive bowl of potato salad, grinning and shaking her head in mock reproach.

Without missing a beat, Harry whips around and flicks a load of soap bubbles right in her face. For a moment she tries for a glare, but she can't help giggling, and then Harry leans down to kiss her, and she goes bright pink. When they break apart, they're both grinning like idiots, and maybe they're a little bit sickening, but they look so happy – like the carefree teenagers they could have been in some simpler life – Neville doesn't mind. Just smirks when Harry looks back at him sheepishly.

Luna follows Ginny, carrying what looks like some sort of pie, maybe a quiche, Hermione definitely mentioned a quiche. "You're supposed to be soaping the _dishes,_ not each other," she tells them solemnly, as though they might be genuinely confused on that point.

"He started it!" Neville protests, and Luna gives them both a smile that's so bright Neville has to swallow hard, almost drops the bowl in his hands. Something in the way the sun streaming in lights up her hair from behind, like a halo, and then that smile, those pale eyes dancing, it's like she's made of light, all silver-gold, and he's been trying not to notice, but Merlin, she's so gorgeous. It hurts to look at her sometimes, like she might burn his eyes out, she's that bright.

She smiles, and then Percy calls out from the garden, and she says, "Coming, coming," and then she's gone.

Neville can't help watching her as she goes, watching the sway of her loose long hair, the way her patchwork skirt brushes her bare feet –

When he turns back to the sink, scrubbing at the bowl as though nothing happened, Harry's watching him. "What?"

There's a knowing look in his green eyes. "So, when're you going to tell her?"

"I – I –" For a moment, he considers denying everything, but his cheeks are flaming. It's a little hard to play the innocent when you're the colour of beetroot. "I'm. I don't think I will, I mean, she doesn't like me back, I'm pretty sure, and I just. Don't want to mess things up. Being friends and all, you know?"

Getting the words out is hard, and he's cringing inside – it's so petty, so ridiculous. They've got so many bigger things to worry about, he's still having nightmares every other night, Harry's testifying at the opening of the first trial next week, and here he is agonising over his little _crush_. Absurd.

A little voice pipes up in the back of his mind, _but it's not just a crush, is it, you know it's not_ just _anything_ , but he grits his teeth and shoves it down. Quite enough on his plate, not to mention Luna's, without all that. No. Not happening.

Harry goes back to the washing up, quietly wiping down mugs for a few moments. Then he says gently, "I know what you mean. But we all worried about that a lot with Ron and Hermione, and that's working out. Besides, I reckon you're the only one in the whole damn world who hasn't noticed she fancies the pants off you."

And Neville has absolutely no response to _that_. He opens and shuts his mouth a couple of times, flailing about mentally for something to say, anything, and then decides he's just gonna ignore it. He can obsess over it tonight instead of sleeping. "Well, we've all got a hell of a lot more important things to worry about, don't you think? Death Eater trials, Auror training, all that stuff."

Harry bites his lip, brows pulling together, shoulders tensing, and for a moment he looks almost as hunted, as haunted, as he did weeks ago at the Memorial. Neville's just starting to berate himself for bringing all that crap up again, when Harry lets out a long breath, visibly relaxes. He puts the mugs on the drying rack, wipes his hands on his jeans, and tells Neville, "You know, it's funny. Dumbledore always used to tell me love was the most important thing in the world."

Then he smacks Neville's shoulder lightly, and says, "I'm gonna go check Ron and Hermione haven't got distracted and let the chicken burn."

* * *

Ten days after Molly Weasley's birthday, the weather finally breaks.

George and Angelina have come down to Devon that day, and the storm strikes in the middle of a high-spirited, mostly chaotic Quidditch match. The storm is dramatic, almost frightening in its sudden intensity, the way the lightning splits the sky, tearing it apart as the heavens cry out. The wind is so strong that even as they scramble to get all their broomsticks inside, Neville's fretting about the Lovegoods' house – only just repaired, and what if their enchantments aren't good enough? Six kids who'd never done magical house-building before, why on earth did they think they were up to the task? All it would take would be one too-strong gust, one lightning strike, and he'd never forgive himself –

But no. What's that Ginny's always saying? _We're all just muddling through, let it go._

There's a great clap of thunder, hard enough to rattle the windows of the Burrow's kitchen. For a moment Neville runs cold under a wave of dread-adrenaline, and beside him George and Angelina both flinch visibly. Hermione jumps about a foot in the air, and Harry reflexively grabs hold of Ginny, that bone-deep protective instinct forever sleeping just beneath his skin. Sudden noises, it's always a sure-fire trigger, always a reminder of the distance between them and normality.

Some days, Neville can't stop thinking about all that, lost deep in the trees and unable to see the forest, or believe there's an end to it. Looks like today's one of those, and the rain lashing at the windows seems poetically appropriate. Dark mood, dark clouds.

Then there's a thin, damp hand tugging at his own, and Luna's breathing, "Oh, isn't it _beautiful_?" She turns her face up to him, and says, "Come dance with me?"

And it's crazy, the most ridiculous idea, but, Merlin, her eyes are so big, and he can't resist that look. So he just nods, throat tight, and lets her pull him through the kitchen, out the door – Ginny winks at him as he goes – into the garden, into torrential rain and screaming wind and if his grandmother could see this, she'd have kittens. _Catch your death_ , she'd say, _and ruin your shoes, come inside, for heaven's sake, child._

Luna holds out her other hand, and he takes it without hesitation. There's a smile starting to creep across his face to match hers, his heart tripping in his chest. She tosses her head, flicking her already-dripping hair out of her face, then starts them spinning.

For a moment Neville feels almost sick with embarrassment – all their friends watching from the house, the ghost of the sad, lonely little boy he once was cringing at any attention – but then Luna lets out this noise, half laugh, half scream, wild and joyful and _alive._ And then he's laughing, tipping his head back, whooping his own reply.

The rain is coming down so heavy and fast it's almost painful, thousands of blunt needles beating a tattoo over his skin. He's soaked to the skin, water dripping cold from his eyebrows, out of his hair, running in fat droplets down his neck, his back, his sides, mud spraying up his legs, across his chest and neck when they slip and nearly fall. Between the laughter, the way they're yelling wordless at the clouds, spinning each other around, his chest is burning, straining for breath. Lightning stripes the bruised-black sky again, a roll of thunder that makes the very ground shake beneath their feet.

It's like catharsis, all that tension shattering and leaving them. The oppressive, sulphurous heat, the ever-building weight of the air pressure, the unbearable exhaustion of trauma, the future they're rushing blindly towards – all of it. All of it coming out in this one great rush of noise and light and motion, and he's never, never felt so alive.

Their feet tangle, and as the world lights up with another deafening crack, they land in a heap of limbs on the muddy ground. Neville takes the worst of the impact, has most of the breath knocked from his lungs, and he can't catch the rest, laughing too hard. Luna's face is pressed into his chest, and he can feel her grinning, gasping for breath. She's lying mostly on top of him, and when she gets a hand on the ground and pushes herself upright he sees she's got mud splattered over her face like freckles. Her hair is wild, strands of it plastered to her flushed cheeks, and there are streaks of mud in it, too.

She's still the most amazing person he's ever laid eyes on. And, hell, he's so in love with her it's not even funny, but right now it doesn't hurt. Too giddy for anything to hurt.

Luna looks at him, head tilted to one side, and says, quite matter-of-factly, "I'd like to kiss you now, Neville."

It feels like the world falls away. Cliché, absurd, but true. No war, no scars, no worries for the future or friends watching from the kitchen. Just the two of them, Neville and Luna, and he'd think he was dreaming, but there's the drumbeat of the rain against his face, counterpoint to the pound of his pulse at temple and throat and wrist, and this is real. Merlin, it's real.

 _Let me not fuck this up_ , he prays fervently, opens his mouth, and hears himself say, "I thought you – that you – wouldn't ever want to – to do anything like that. With me – I mean –"

She smiles, wide and affectionate. Leans in closer, one hand tangling in the dripping curls of his hair, tells him, "You're brilliant, you know, but you're also an idiot."

"Yeah," he says breathlessly, "Yeah, I really am, aren't I?"

And then they're kissing. He's lying on the ground, mud cold and slick where his shirt's riding up, rain hammering down against his skin, and Luna's pressed up against him, fingers twisted into his hair, curve of her waist firm under his hand, and they're kissing. Silly and messy and wet, noses bumping, teeth scraping awkwardly, no finesse at all, but they're giggling into it, and he's so happy he could die. They're _kissing_.

Dimly, he hears Ron yelling through the storm, "Oi, you lot, get inside, you're gonna catch your deaths!"

They pull apart. Luna's flushing, and there's this smile, this look in her eyes that Neville's never seen before – a little shy, and somehow mischievous, and heated, all of her faraway airiness gone. It's a damn good look on her. "You think we should go back in?"

Water's dripping from her hair onto his face, and maybe it's his imagination, but her lips look fuller, redder. He lifts his hand, runs it over her cheek, and she leans into the touch, presses another little kiss to his palm. "Nah, I'm enjoying the weather," he says, and tugs her down again.

* * *

Platform Nine and Three Quarters is awash with people.

It's a little overwhelming, actually. All the yelling, the owls cawing, children laughing, the hiss and billow of steam, people barging past with trollies and trunks and broomsticks in hand – all the usual chaos. Except, and Neville really doesn't think he's imagining it, it's all just slightly more _intense_ than any other year he's stood on the platform at twenty to nine on the first of September.

Everyone's happier, or at least trying to _act_ happier, trying to forget that the last time the Hogwarts Express left King's Cross it was delivering children into the hands of the Death Eaters. And as Neville and the Longbottom family could tell them, trying so hard to be happy will only put you more on edge. It only throws the cracks in the façade into sharper relief.

Luna's gripping his hand so tight it's going numb, and he's pretty sure she's holding Ginny's equally tightly on her other side. Her palms are clammy, and faint lines of tension crease her brows, and at some point Neville's going to have to let go of her, watch her get on that train that will take her hundreds of miles away from him, and he doesn't know how he's going to do it.

"We'd better get on-board before all the compartments are taken," Ginny says, tilting her head back to look up at Harry, standing behind her.

Harry doesn't say anything in reply, just runs his hand through her hair and gives her a smile that looks like it was exhausting to put there. Even with Neville and Ginny and Luna doing their best to deflect the attention, so many kids and parents and passers-by have approached him that it took them twice as long as it should have to get here. He's pale and his lower lip is bleeding where he's bitten it, but today never was going to be easy.

"Oh, come here," Ginny says, exasperated. She lets go of Luna's hand, turns around in Harry's arms to face him, pulls him close for a kiss.

It's kind of sweet – those two always are – and Neville's smiling, can't help it, as Luna turns in towards him, the hand that isn't clutching his slipping around his waist. They lean their foreheads together, without a word, moving as one, like it's bone-deep instinct. Luna lets out a long, long sigh, and Neville inhales, breathes her in deep.

He runs his palm down the soft smooth curve of her back, committing to memory every nub of her spine, the sharp wings of her shoulder blades, the divots of her waist. It's still so new, this skin-tight closeness between them, so new he still can't quite believe he gets to _touch_ her like this.

Even if they're together a hundred years, he hopes he never stops feeling like the luckiest person alive, so lucky he wants to damn well cry.

Luna traces his lips with the very tips of her fingers while he strokes her back. Next to them, Harry's saying something to Ginny, but they don't need words, not now, all they've ever really needed is _them_. Pressed together like this, sharing body heat, exchanging air, there aren't words that could bring them closer, and it's just as well. Neville's never been great with words.

As though in response to some silent signal they all of them hear, Luna and Neville step apart a little at the same time as Harry and Ginny, at the same time as Hermione arrives, Head Girl badge gleaming in the sunlight. She's already in the school uniform, and it makes her look both much older and much younger at once. "Are you two ready to go?" she asks, brisk and efficient. Probably going to be the most fearsome Head Girl Hogwarts ever had.

"Yeah, just about," Ginny says, meeting Luna's eyes and smiling. "Just give us a minute."

Neville lets go of Luna's hand, and she goes over to kiss Harry's cheek, whisper something in his ear, while Ginny hugs Neville. "Merlin, Weasley, you're gonna break my ribs," he gasps, and they both laugh.

"Stay out of trouble, you hear?" Ginny orders, somehow squeezing him even tighter.

"Between Auror training and sorting out Harry's house, I won't have any time for trouble-making," he says. But he knows she really does mean it, and means _take care, don't work yourself too hard, don't let testifying at the trials set you back, don't let Harry worry you sick, tell me when things get hard,_ all those things they've been over and over and over in the last few days.

She's still smiling but it looks fragile, like it might break into tears any moment, and Ginny looking fragile is so rare Neville impulsively kisses her forehead, ruffles her hair up. "Yeah, I'm counting on that," she says, then, quick and quiet, "And – look after him for me. Please, just look after him, Neville?"

They both glance across at Harry, hugging Hermione now, eyes pressed closed in a tension-tight face. He woke up screaming at four this morning, had Neville bolting down the draughty hall, wand raised and bile in the back of his own throat, only to find Harry and Ginny sitting bleary-eyed and resigned on the edge of the old four-poster bed. Wonders how often that'll happen this coming year, how long he'll take to get used to that and the dark old house.

"I will, I promise, Ginny."

After all, it won't be so different to sharing that dormitory up in Gryffindor Tower. They'll find a new equilibrium, he and Harry and Ron, just like the girls will up at Hogwarts.

Hermione hugs Neville quickly, and then she and Luna and Ginny are climbing aboard. The train pulls away in a great storm of steam, the whistle high and piercing through the shouted goodbyes and the clack-clack-clack of wheels over sleepers. Luna and Ginny hang halfway out of their compartment window, hair rippling like a silver-and-vermilion flag, waving and waving.

Neville puts two fingers to his mouth, whistles as loud as he can, while beside him Harry goes to his tiptoes, waving madly back. They wait on the platform, side by side, shoulders knocking together, as the train disappears off into the distance. There are tears pricking at Neville's eyes, splintering his vision, and he's pretty sure Harry is crying, but he pretends not to notice. They're still in the middle of a crowd, not the best time for a heart-to-heart.

Instead he just nudges his friend in the side with his elbow. "C'mon, let's get back to Grimmauld Place, Ron's going to need some help moving all his stuff in." Knows Harry will hear what he really means, underneath.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go," Harry says, and he sounds a little hoarse, a little sniffly, but when he looks over at Neville the corner of his mouth quirks up, a half-smile that's barely there but there nonetheless.

And really, Neville thinks, as they make their torturously slow, too-famous way back off the platform, after everything, they aren't doing bad.

Not bad at all.


End file.
